


How High a Fall

by Esteliel



Category: Les Misérables (TV 2018)
Genre: Blow Jobs Through Clothes, Coming In Pants, Handcuffs, Identity Porn, Kneeling, M/M, Montreuil-sur-Mer, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-23 05:03:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17676923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/pseuds/Esteliel
Summary: Javert was still watching him intently. Then he took a step closer. “Perhaps Monsieur le Maire would like a demonstration of what I would consider a thief’s penitence?”Valjean was breathless. Now, more than ever, he needed to end this conversation. Instead, his heart shuddering with an overwhelmed, ecstatic terror, he held out his hands.Valjean and Javert play a dangerous game in Montreuil.





	How High a Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TwelveLeagues](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwelveLeagues/gifts).



“You’ve talked to me about punishment.” Valjean could hear the despairing quiver in his own voice. “About wickedness. What do you know about penitence, inspector?”

The sun had set hours ago. Outside, everything was dark; Valjean had drawn the curtains earlier, working in the light of the lamps he’d lit. He preferred that silence, those late hours when there was no need to hide behind smiles.

He hadn’t expected Javert to come to his office so late. Neither had he expected Javert to relentlessly pursue the topic of an earlier conversation until Valjean could barely draw in breath, suffocating on the guilt that bore down on him.

“Penitence?” Javert spoke slowly, thoughtfully tasting the word on his tongue, although even now his eyes were gleaming suspiciously at Valjean.

A part of Valjean yearned to shed his burden: to fall to his knees and bare all, to have this weight taken from his shoulders at last. And yet, how could he? He, who knew better than most what was to follow?

“Surely that’s a matter of the church. You might ask your priest that, Monsieur le Maire.”

There was something mildly mocking in the address. Valjean was not imagining it. Could everyone else in the town hear it in Javert’s voice as well?

“Indulge me, Inspector.” Valjean’s hands were damp with sweat as he wiped them on his trousers. “Not as a priest might, but as a… As a man with your experience might.”

“Penitence,” Javert repeated. He paused, as if to savor the word and, perhaps, the images it might evoke. Then he huffed a sound of amusement.

“The law has no need for penitence. Crime is punished. Wickedness is punished. It’s the chains and the whip that do the job, not penitence. Penitence—no, Monsieur le Maire. If you were to spend time around such men, you’d know that penitence isn’t something they’re capable of.”

“You truly think so?” Valjean didn’t know why he kept the conversation going. Every minute spent in the company of this man was dangerous. Even so, despite the racing of his heart and the way every muscle in his body had instinctively tensed at Javert’s closeness, he couldn’t force himself to retreat from this path he had so recklessly chosen. “I know we are of differing opinions here—but don’t you think it’s possible that a man might commit a crime and repent?”

“What good is that?” Javert asked mercilessly. “He’ll have to pay for it all the same. That is the very foundation of justice. As I told you, monsieur, there’s crime everywhere. Not just in dark alleys and inns of ill repute. There’s crime that happens in secret. A foulness that stains men who are considered virtuous. These men might hide—and for a while they will—but that foulness will out. Eventually everything will be uncovered. Their fine reputation will be ripped away. And then there will be the iron cuffs and chains they deserve.”  
Javert’s lips twitched with amusement as he continued to gaze at Valjean. “I suppose there might be penitence then as well. Remorse. A guilty conscience would surely embrace the weight of the chains in contrition, if such a wicked man were indeed as virtuous as he pretends to be.”

They were alone in the office. All the workers had left hours ago.

Javert had come to report on some matter. Valjean had barely paid attention, too distracted by the terrified beating of his heart and the images Javert’s presence always recalled: the merciless sun burning his back, the dust of the quarry so thick in the air that it was impossible to breathe deeply, the agony of a body beaten and bruised.

He should end this conversation. He should send Javert away, walk home, and lock himself inside his house where no one would intrude, where even these memories would eventually give way to sleep.

Instead, Valjean found himself slowly choking on a haze of terror, the secret that weighed on him made far heavier this day by the sight of a little Savoyard who had walked through the town. Valjean had given him a five-franc piece and questioned him without success, before he had eventually become aware of the gaze of Javert, who had watched him from across the street.

At times it seemed impossible to go on with the weight of it on his back. To be able to confess his sins, to be judged, to find absolution... Valjean yearned for it with a blind, despairing need that made even the dark promise in Javert’s eyes a temptation that was hard to resist.

He knew that this was a dangerous game they were playing. He knew that he needed to retreat from this conversation and from this man. Still. With the abyss looming before him, exuding a strange gravity that pulled him towards it, and with the weight upon his back growing ever heavier, he couldn’t resist taking a step towards it, trembling as he looked over the edge into the churning darkness that awaited deep below.

How high a fall it would be.

Javert was still watching him intently. Then he took a step closer. “Perhaps Monsieur le Maire would like a demonstration of what I would consider a thief’s penitence?”

Valjean was breathless. Now, more than ever, he needed to end this conversation. Instead, his heart shuddering with an overwhelmed, ecstatic terror, he held out his hands.

Then the cuffs clicked in place around his wrists.

His breath seemed to leave his lungs in a shivering sigh. His fingers trembled. The metal was cold against his skin, the weight of the cuffs so familiar as if he had only just taken them off last night.

His heart shuddered with panic, like a bird suddenly trapped in a cage. Even so, he found that he could not move, ensnared by more than just the weight of the iron. It was the weight of Javert’s gaze that held him in place. Javert was watching him—and as Valjean watched him in turn, breathless and nervous, he saw Javert’s tongue come out to moisten his lip.

“That’s only the beginning, of course.” Javert’s voice was still soft, but now there was a hint of roughness that hadn’t been there before. “Penitent or not… Do you wish to know what follows for a thief?”

He could still end it all easily, Valjean told himself. He could laugh and end this farce, demand Javert open the cuffs, and then walk home. Javert had no proof. He might suspect—but he had no proof unless Valjean gave it to him.

He opened his mouth to speak, but his tongue was as heavy as a stone in his mouth. He couldn’t make himself utter the word—not with Javert’s eyes on him, and Javert so close.

Another sound escaped Javert—this one not amused, but thoughtful. “First, we check for hidden implements.”

Valjean watched, his breath stuck in his throat, as Javert tugged off his glove, finger by finger.

“Open your mouth.”

The command came with sudden sharpness. Valjean found himself obeying before he even realized with another shudder of mortification that Javert had addressed him with the painful familiarity one used for a convict, instead of the respectful address even Javert employed for the mayor.

Then two of Javert’s fingers were in his mouth. Valjean shuddered nervously, blinking at the sudden, inexplicable threat of tears as they explored along his teeth, then pushed down on his tongue as if he were no more than a beast.

For a long moment, Javert let his fingers linger in Valjean’s mouth. Valjean could not say what the taste was—sweat, perhaps, dust, a hint of leather. It filled his mouth, terrifyingly intimate, while all he could do was tremble and endure the humiliation, his lips spread around Javert’s digits.

Then Javert laughed quietly. “Of course, there are other places a convict would hide forbidden tools.”

Slowly, Javert pulled his fingers free. They were wet, glistening with Valjean’s saliva. There was something visceral to the sight that struck Valjean to the bone, his stomach clenching in shock. It took a long moment until he realized what Javert had said.

 _Convict_ , not _thief_ …

Instinctively, he licked at his aching lips.

Javert smiled. “Perhaps Monsieur le Maire would like a demonstration of that as well?”  
The room seemed to spin around Valjean. In his mind, he could hear nothing but the roar of his own blood and the jeering of the crowds long ago. Shame twisted in his stomach until he was nearly sick with it.

There had been iron around his wrists even then—iron that had been heavier and chains that had subdued him. Cudgels had come down onto every man who had dared to struggle when uncaring hands had stripped him and forced him open. Valjean remembered the ignominy, the burning shame. Terror, hate and fear had burned so brightly that all that had once been Jean Valjean was gone, until he was truly no more than a beast to be prodded, exposed and shamed before the cruel eyes of strangers...

With a low, terrified moan, Valjean fell to his knees, his hands lifted in an unconscious plea.

His chest was aching; he couldn’t breathe. His heartbeat was echoing in his ears. As he looked up at Javert towering above him, it seemed to him for a moment that here, at last, Judgment Day had come. Now Michael stood with a sword above him; now his sins would be weighed—yet surely nothing he had done could weigh as heavily as that one silver coin he could feel pushing him down into the mud even now...

“Well, well,” Javert murmured. “That is certainly a sight. A penitent thief after all?”

Valjean could barely make out the meaning of those words amid the roaring in his ears. As he watched, Javert licked his lips again—and then he lifted a foot.

A moment later, his boot came to rest between Valjean’s legs. It pressed painfully down. To his utter shock and mortification, Valjean realized now his body had been thrumming with a strange, tense energy all along, as if a part of him was not able to discern between the terror of gazing at Javert and the raptures other men might feel.

Even now, the hard length between his legs throbbed—whether with pleasure or with pain, he could not say. Perhaps this was what a martyr felt at the moment of death: torment turned to rapture, terror to something celestial, a light so bright it blinded just as much as the night...

“Not so penitent then.” Javert laughed, the rough sound of it sending another shiver through Valjean.

A moment later, Javert reached out for his face once more. Slowly, he drew a finger along Valjean’s eye, his thumb strangely gentle against the sensitive skin.

Had he wept?

Javert exhaled, his hand lingering for a heartbeat. Valjean recalled the way Javert’s fingers had felt in his mouth, the strange weight of them on his tongue, the stretch of his mouth around them.

Then Javert’s hand slid into his hair. A moment later, the ribbon was loosened. The long strands settled around Valjean’s face while the ache between his legs grew, his body unbearably hard as Javert’s boot pressed down.

Valjean struggled to breathe. Something tight and heavy seemed wound around his ribs, his heart beating in his throat. Even now, as he was leaning across the abyss and saw the terrifying maelstrom of darkness that awaited, the yearning to let go—to allow himself to fall, to be swallowed up and forgotten—was nearly impossible to resist.

Terrified, he cast around for a hold—anything to stop him in the slide towards the precipice looming before him. Faster and faster he slid. The weight upon him was still bearing down even as his heart seemed close to bursting with fear at what awaited—and yet there was no helping hand, no lifeline, just the heavy gaze of the impassive man sitting in judgment above him...

A low sound of terror escaped his throat, his heart still beating rapidly against his ribs. Javert’s boot kept pressing down mercilessly, as if by crushing his shaft, he could squash out the darkness within Valjean’s heart.

Tears were running down Valjean’s cheeks. He was trapped. There was no escape. There was no choice. The only way out would be to give in...

And then he saw, there right before him, that Javert, too, had roused. Something hard and heavy was pressing against the wool of his trousers, the shape unmistakable.

Darkness encroached on the edges of Valjean’s vision as Javert’s boot kept pushing down. Valjean’s shaft and testes ached, crushed by the merciless pressure—just as Jean Valjean found himself crushed between the darkness that would follow surrender and the heaviness of the sin he carried within him.

To live like this, to suffer for all eternity the fear, the shame of the stolen coin, the guilt that kept him turning in his bed—but to return, to be no more than a beast that was stripped and beaten and pushed here and there…

The roar in his ears increased until he could not even hear the sound of his own breathing anymore. Faster and faster the room spun around him. Everything was turning black. The pain between his legs had become a spike of red-hot heat, burning like a lance thrust into his flesh, while the weight upon his shoulders grew heavier and heavier—surely he’d be crushed into the ground if he would not finally bend beneath it in surrender...

With a low moan of terror, Valjean gave in. He did not even truly know what he was reaching for until his lips found the shape of Javert’s heavy arousal behind the cloth of his trousers.

Valjean followed the shape of it with his lips. More tears leaked from his eyes as the crushing pressure between his own legs did not relent, a muffled, desperate sound escaping him as he pressed his tongue against the fabric. Behind the stretched wool, the head of Javert’s cock seemed to strain towards him.

Valjean groaned helplessly as he sucked at the clothed shape—and then there was a sudden surge of heat, the scent of Javert overpowering his senses moments before the taste of him seeped through the wool. Valjean continued to mouth at the damp fabric, the rigid shape beneath the cloth pulsing as he pressed his tongue to the damp cloth, more bitterness seeping onto his tongue.

A moment later, the merciless boot between his legs was suddenly gone.

Still blind with tears and agony, Valjean found himself floating free in a sea of possibility. The crushing weight above him seemed to have suddenly lifted as well. 

Valjean leaned back, still heaving for breath as he looked up at Javert in disbelief. Javert, who had never faltered before, had taken an uncertain step backwards in turn. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, his lips parted.

It took Valjean a long moment until he realized with mortification that his own clothes were uncomfortably damp as well. Somehow, despite—or perhaps because of—the unbearable crush of Javert’s boot, his body had achieved release.

He shied away from the thought, suddenly becoming aware of where he was, of how he must have looked. To tremble at the feet of Javert, to offer up his own subjugation, to freely submit to torment when for nineteen long years, he had been trapped in a hell ruled by Javert’s likes...

Valjean’s knees ached. Even now, his body was throbbing in agony where Javert had so cruelly pressed down. When he raised his hands, he could feel the weight of the iron around his wrists. It was no longer cold; his skin had warmed it.

And yet for once, his mind was silent. He could not hear the roaring or the remembered rustling of leaves; there were no church bells, and no children sobbing.

For one endless, disbelieving moment, there on his knees on the floor of his own office, Valjean found himself at peace, floating on a strange euphoria, like a man who had just survived mortal danger.

Then, little by little, exhaustion filtered in.

He met Javert’s eyes mutely and raised his wrists a little higher. Javert stared at him. Javert’s chest was still heaving, his eyes unreadable.

“If you will, please, Inspector.” Valjean’s voice was soft but firm.

A moment later, Javert reached out for the cuffs. His thumb ran around the rim of one iron shackle. Valjean shivered again at the touch that could be either threat or caress, Javert’s thumb rough and hot against his skin.

Then Javert took out his key and released him, and Valjean carefully rose up from his knees.

“Thank you for the enlightening conversation,” he said quietly. “If you do not mind now, my portress awaits me with dinner.”

Javert was still staring at him. As Valjean watched, his lips parted again. There was a sound, almost like a sigh, but already there was a familiar thoughtfulness on his face as Javert watched him for long moments.

“Of course,” Javert said at last. “I look forward to resuming this conversation at another time. Good day to you, monsieur.”


End file.
